


Better

by neversaydie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brain Damage, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Codependency, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Multi, Past Bucky Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Suicide Attempt, globetrotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 11:30:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11160963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: "I think I could do it here, y'know.""Do what?" Steve is sweating in the muggy late-summer storm, shirt inadequate for the weather and sticking to his shoulders as it becomes steadily soaked through. He hasn't tried to make Bucky take shelter from the rain and instead stayed beside him under the onslaught, leaning on the eroded rail of the pier and watching the water roil beneath them. He wonders if their combined weight is enough to break the rusted metal altogether, if they could end up falling all over again. If they ever stopped.Bucky finally cuts his eyes sideways, a flash of grey as stormy as the sea below that's somehow still shocking after all these years. Steve doesn't feel like it's betrayal to say he looks fucking terrible, all dark circles and five-day beard and sallow skin like he hasn't seen the sun for years. He lifts his working shoulder in a slow shrug and looks back out at the horizon, where there are more dark clouds rolling in towards them."Get better."





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> I started this ages ago and finally got my shit together to finish it.

"I think I could do it here, y'know."

The wind is blowing Bucky's hair into his eyes, but he doesn't turn to look at Steve despite the sting. He's been staring out at the sea for the past fifteen minutes, the waves too light to be slate but nowhere near blue, and the hair that isn't whipping into his eyes is starting to stick to his face in the driving rain. The heavens opened a while ago, but neither of them has moved a muscle in response.

"Do what?" Steve is sweating in the muggy late-summer storm, shirt inadequate for the weather and sticking to his shoulders as it becomes steadily soaked through. He hasn't tried to make Bucky take shelter from the rain and instead stayed beside him under the onslaught, leaning on the eroded rail of the pier and watching the water roil beneath them. He wonders if their combined weight is enough to break the rusted metal altogether, if they could end up falling all over again. If they ever stopped.

Bucky finally cuts his eyes sideways, a flash of grey as stormy as the sea below that's somehow still shocking after all these years. Steve doesn't feel like it's betrayal to say he looks fucking terrible, all dark circles and five-day beard and sallow skin like he hasn't seen the sun for years. He lifts his working shoulder in a slow shrug and looks back out at the horizon, where there are more dark clouds rolling in towards them.

"Get better."

 

After Wakanda, after Bucky was defrosted again and the HYDRA triggers laboriously removed from his head, things were supposed to be better. The threat of Bucky being taken over by someone with the right cheat codes was totally eradicated: short of breaking him all over again, HYDRA now has no more access to his mind than anyone else. There are no more magic words, Sleeping Beauty is awake and the curse has been lifted.

Well. That particular curse has been lifted.

What they were supposed to get was _better_. What they actually got was good, old-fashioned PTSD and seventy-odd years of compounded trauma that's a lot tougher to deal with than the nebulous threat of some big bad breaking the roadmap to the Winter Soldier's brain out of the most secure vault in Wakanda. Plus the brain damage, Steve reminds himself with a sardonic stab of resignation when Bucky has a seizure and collapses and jerks on the sidewalk and pisses himself in the middle of a country where Steve doesn't speak the fucking language to ask for help. Mustn't forget the brain damage.

The English coast isn't their first choice for living, not their third or fourth either. They're technically fugitives from the United States, but it takes little more than a text Natasha's way to have them back in Brooklyn within the week. Which would be fine (better than fine, hell, it's everything Steve's been dreaming about and then some), if just the smell of the city didn't leave Bucky shaking and throwing up in the nearest trash can from panic as soon as they left the air-conditioned, filtered safety of the airport. The same thing happens in Manhattan, in D.C., in podunk nowhere Kansas, and then things start to get too hot with blurry cell phone pictures that could be them hitting the internet, so they call in another favour and head for Europe.

Germany works for a short time, a little farmhouse in a small hamlet that leaves them warily to themselves as long as they don't show their faces too much. Bucky seems to remember things here and there, predictably from the war, and the dry summer heat settles into their bones and makes it easier to sleep than Steve's found it since he came out of the ice. They end up with a cat, somehow, a fat ginger stray that saunters in and takes up permanent residence around Bucky's neck without so much as a _by your leave_ , not that Bucky seems to mind being ridden around the place. Things settle, for a while, and Steve starts to feel like maybe they can build something here, put some of their pieces back together now they can breathe. That is, until a young man comes up behind Steve in the grocery store and asks _Suchen Sie etwas?_ and ends up on the squeaky lino floor with a super-strong hand wrapped around his throat because that's exactly what Steve heard searching a barn in 1944 before a knife slipped burning cold between his ribs and—

They leave in a hurry, hush money no object since Clint managed to empty their American bank accounts into Wakandan ones that couldn't be frozen over the whole fugitive issue. Bucky turns his face to the window so Steve can't see him tear up about leaving the cat behind, unable to hold back a soft sniffle when he remembers finally pulling her off his neck and setting her down in the yard while she yowled plaintively at being abandoned. The scratches on his collarbones are just another tally on the list of Steve's thousand paper cuts of guilt, so he tightens his knuckles on the steering wheel and drives through the night, passing yellow road signs and trying not to think about their last European road trip when things were both more and less fucked up.

God, he misses Sam so much he can barely breathe sometimes. Those late-night stops at McDonald's with foreign menus, both his guys bickering about legroom and bathroom breaks and how loud the other was breathing, the way Bucky grudgingly tossed his jacket over Sam when he fell asleep in the back and the way Sam pulled over without having to be asked when Bucky started breathing too quick and shallow at their cramped quarters. It's probably pathetic that those nights were some of the best Steve's had this century, but he's been through too damn much to lie to himself anymore.

He calls Sam when he can, struggles to keep in touch through burner phones and different cell providers and patchy to no coverage depending on where they are. They end up sending long emails back and forth, Bucky watching the perimeter of internet cafés cagily while Steve hunts and pecks his words out of clackety old keyboards, occasionally grunting out a greeting or some phrase Steve should tell Sam from him. Sam sends Steve pages of replies about Wakanda and adjusting and how Clint is a fucking pain in the ass roommate, attaches meme pictures that Steve doesn't understand but leave Bucky twitching the little curl of lips his smile has become these days. Steve loves them both so fucking much, the distance and the closeness is breaking his heart, everything that's left intact.

When they hit England, flying into London at two in the morning and hating every second of the turbulence, Steve buys an honest to god postcard with a red bus on it and scrawls _wish you were here_ on the back before carefully printing Sam's new address. Bucky steals the pen and draws an obscene looking bird before he can post it. His guys. Steve wishes to hell they were all together again.

London is as much of a bust as Manhattan or D.C., in a slightly more sinister way. Instead of panicking like he had on American soil, Bucky stops on the Underground and points out different tube stops on the wall map, muttering out clipped syllables about the lines he'd taken, the shots he'd taken after, the way it's easy to lose someone down the old service tunnels beneath the city that aren't used anymore. There's wind underground, the hot, stale blast of it hits Steve in the eyes as they inch down a steep escalator that seems to function at a crawl (civilians with luggage don't take the stairs no matter how slow these things are, Bucky explains, sounding like Natasha). The dusty air makes him choke, and Bucky's aborted concern ( _hey Stevie, you need your cigarettes?_ , half-remembered and then stopped in his tracks, hand on Steve's shoulder with a frown on his face because he can't remember why) makes Steve shove him away in a flash of temper for not _being_ that guy anymore. They don't speak all the way to Kings Cross, which fortunately lets them blend in with the early-morning commuter crowd in the cramped, sweaty carriages. Steve doesn't apologise, but he buys Bucky a Sudoku book for the train out West. Bucky doesn't forgive him, but he rests his head on Steve's shoulder to fall asleep as they sway through countryside and industry and cities and nowhere.

Big cities haven't worked so far, the press of people and the likelihood that he'd murdered someone there in the past have been too much for Bucky, the very architecture of urban living closing in on him like a concrete cryo tube. And the countryside of Europe hasn't worked for Steve, too many ghosts haunting the junk room in his brain that he keeps locked up tight as a drum and never intends to open, thank you very much. They need to find a balance, because Steve isn't sleeping and Bucky isn't eating and they're this close to burning out like the tail of a rocket sending them both into the atmosphere, so Steve decides (as the captain of this little mission of awfulness), to try a different kind of location. One where neither of them have a single memory waiting to pounce on them in the dark.

They used to send people to the coast to recuperate, after all. Maybe old superstitions and sea air are all they have left.

 

The apartment they rent is surprisingly large, the top floor of an old three-storey house converted into flats that came ready-furnished for a quick move (choices about interior design had been the last thing they needed, Bucky tore a chunk out of his hair during a flashback the day they signed the lease and the people at the guest house they'd been stopping in were starting to get worried about the noise). As a result, the décor is seaside-themed and shabby, worn out like it hasn't been touched since at least the late 80s, white and blue and sea-green with plenty of twee pictures of sailboats and seashells dotted about the place. It ends up working to their advantage, because the seaside-grandma furnishings are foreign enough to not spark off any associations at all, let alone bad ones.

Bucky claims his bedroom without hesitation, promptly going inside and locking the door with the decisive _thunk_ of an old deadbolt. It's left to Steve to case the place, dismantle the smoke alarm to check for bugs and make the necessary security adjustments (Bucky stopped being resentful about him hiding the knives months ago, he doesn't want to hurt Steve again even if he doesn't always like him all that much). He sees that as a positive, that Bucky – or Bucky's paranoia – trusts him enough to leave the essentials in his hands, but Steve still struggles to put on a happy face when Bucky finally emerges for dinner.

There's something in the air, besides the tang of salt and faint smell of smoke from the last tenant clinging to the soft furnishings, because Bucky's face softens when he gets a look at Steve and he swerves the table to rummage in the kitchen drawers. He turns up a candle and plants it in a glass when he can't find a holder, making some crack about how it's a special occasion so they should class things up a bit.

He lights a match with his teeth. Steve remembers him learning how, a lanky teen whose soft features hadn't sharpened trying to emulate the cool guys on their block, spitting out broken match heads as Steve laughed so hard he fell off his chair, and then they were both laughing too hard to catch their breath and—

Steve goes out. By the time he comes back, shivering and struggling to push down bad memories induced by the cold, the candle has burned out.

 

Steve lies in his too-small twin bed at night and stares at the sloped wooden ceiling, eyes dry and itchy with insomnia, and wonders if Peggy ever came to a place like this.

It's strange to be in England without her, a still presence between them to scoff when Bucky gripes about the coffee and promise to send them real bagels from the good Jewish bakeries when she's back in London. He wonders what she'd think of them now, both cracked and scraped with so much road rash it's hard to know where to touch without hurting, both refusing to admit they're broken because naming an evil only gives it more power. He wonders if she'd want him now, figures she liked the broken little guy he was at basic training just fine, maybe she wouldn't mind the broken big guy either. Whether she'd want Bucky too is something else entirely, but she'd know Steve wouldn't come without him. They've always been a matched set, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee falling down the rabbit hole hand in hand.

The inability to sleep means he hears it every time Bucky cries out in the next room, every time he falls out of bed from a nightmare or a fit, and mostly Steve goes to help. Sometimes, just sometimes, he doesn't. When he hears Bucky crying through the wall, that soft weeping like a child too miserable to be angry, that's when Steve forces his eyes to close and curls his fists in the sheets and stays in bed. He doesn't know if Bucky would still hate to be seen crying, imagines the part of him that felt shame about that got burned out with the rest, but Steve, selfishly, doesn't want to see it. He's not selfish about a lot of things when it comes to Bucky, except forcing him to stay alive when he clearly doesn't want to be, but that's his line in the sand. One thing he won't do to himself, no matter the weight of his never-ending fucking guilt.

Sam would like it here, that's the other thing Steve thinks about when he's trying not to hear Bucky crying or trying to fall asleep as the yellow streetlights shine though the gap in his bedroom curtains like a spotlight looking for a sinner. Sam would appreciate the quiet, he'd enjoy the steady pace of life and the relentless, reassuring movement of the sea when he was anxious. He'd feel safer in the silence of the night, no sirens or gunshots that might be the past or present or both at once. More than that, he'd enjoy being on the stony beach and dipping his toes in the freezing water, throwing sunscreen at Steve and Bucky when the late summer flares unexpectedly back into life in its death throes. There's a lot of that when they're around, things unexpectedly coming back to life.

The late summer does end up being hot as it fades into autumn – leaving the apartment feels like stepping into a steam bath half the time, a monsoon the other. It rains a lot by the sea, the leaves outside their window fading from green to red to brown before being knocked off their branches by the raindrops, heavy and fat as the stones they used to skip across the East River until they sank out of sight. They wander down to the rickety pier, lazy in the thick heat and languid rain, and Steve tells Bucky his theory about Sam enjoying the seaside. Bucky says nothing, just picks up some stones and drops them into the water, straight down without a skip.

He doesn't say a lot these days, Steve guesses he doesn't like the verbal tics he's got now. The stutter isn't constant, only comes out on the very bad days, but it makes Bucky volatile as a wet alley cat. Losing words is more common, and Steve supposes he should find it reassuring that he usually knows exactly what Bucky's asking for when he says _the thing_ (or, on worse days, _veshch_ ), but he gets frustrated too. He's only human, he tells himself, even though that isn't quite true anymore. He doesn't know if he should hold himself to a higher standard now, but he's selfish enough to not interrogate the idea too closely. Nobody else is going to protect him these days, he may as well do it himself.

 

It's impossible to butter bread one-handed.

Bucky's figured out most other daily tasks, and although he's still not quite steady in his balance since he lost his arm again he's adapted pretty well. It's the psychological aspects of losing the limb that have been the real problem, (he was checked out all the way from Siberia to Wakanda, staring blankly at the wall of the jet and shaking from more than the shock and pain, because the last time he had that awful limbless lightness at his side he was chained to the wall in a stinking cell having his teeth pulled out for noncompliance and—), physically he's been able to compensate without too much trouble.

Except when it comes to making a _fucking_ sandwich.

They get through a _lot_ of plates broken in anger, because Bucky's temper is like a bottle rocket now and frustration triggers it worse than anything else. The kitchen wall quickly acquires holes from the knives thrown with expert precision ("At least that's _something_ I ain't too fucking useless for!"), and one of the downstairs neighbours catches Steve in the hall and quietly asks him if everything is okay at home. Bucky won't let Steve do anything for him, either getting incensed about how he's _not a fucking invalid_ or listlessly shaking his head because he doesn't deserve help, depending on the day. It's a risk to buy a living aid (a non-slip board with two edges that stop the bread from moving) and silently leave it lying out in the kitchen for Bucky to find, but Steve has never taken things lying down and he isn't about to start just because Bucky's being a heel. If he let _that_ stop him he'd have given up in the twenties.

It's a pleasant surprise when Bucky comes and finds him in the high-backed, velvety-green, almost threadbare chair that Steve favours for reading and sets a plate of toast on the arm. Bucky catches Steve's head and tugs him over to smack a kiss to his temple, before wandering off back into the kitchen without a word. Sometimes he forgets that the future can be great as well as terrible, Steve knows he does too. Back when he was small and twisted and bitter about it, he would have given his left arm for some of the products they make to help disabled people these days.

Steve grimaces and goes back to his book, glad he didn't say that out loud even if it seems like Bucky might have found it funny today. Poor choice of words.

 

In the mornings, Bucky sits on the stoop of their building and drinks coffee – black and sweet enough to stand a spoon in. If he's in a good mood, he'll call up to Steve that he'll say a prayer to St Anthony when he hears him crashing around trying to find his keys upstairs, regular as clockwork. Steve's not sure if he totally believes it, but they always seem to turn up soon afterwards. Personally, he's pretty sure God left the building as soon as he got into Erskine's chamber, that he didn't take kindly to Steve being a meddle to his creation and has been purposefully screwing with his life ever since. Pretty sure, not certain, because St Anthony still seems sweet on Bucky at least, and he's been a confirmed sinner since he was eight years old.

A thin sliver of sea is visible from their stoop, between buildings on either side which block out the curve of the coast. Bucky insists he can see Wales across the water and Ireland beyond, which Steve knows for a fact is a load of bull but makes him smile anyway. It's an echo that doesn't sting so much anymore, reminds him of how Bucky used to try and convince him of all sorts of crap when they were kids just to see if he could. That Sister Catherine had goat legs beneath her habit, that Marty Zimmerman's big brother was an eight-foot-tall golem, that Bucky was an alien baby who fell off a star and got adopted by the Barnes clan. Jury's still out on the last one, Steve thinks, as he leans on the windowsill and watches Bucky purr and meow at a stray cat between drags on his cigarette.

A lot of Bucky's fundamental weirdness, the parts that have stayed constant through every freeze and thaw, gets detailed in Steve's emails to Sam, which are ever-increasing in length and breadth of topic as he fears their connection slipping away like a shitty radio signal. It's not something that made it into the history books, the fact that Sergeant Barnes All-American Hero insisted he knew bird calls and could talk to dogs and cats, refused to look into mirrors at night in case something was looking back, and was bitterly opposed to marmalade of any kind. Sam gets the picture in gory technicolour, with Steve struggling to stick to the present or past tense because he's not sure who exactly he's writing about.

Some of Sam's replies come earmarked 'to be read aloud', and Steve saves them for when Bucky's having an especially bad day and they both need the boost. They're frequently read through the bathroom door – since Bucky holes up in the empty tub when things are extra FUBAR – and Steve could kiss Sam for making those tense, horrible hours almost bearable. Pissing in the kitchen sink wasn't something he missed this century, and he'd lay the guilt on thicker if Bucky didn't emerge from those jags looking like he'd lost a boxing match with how swollen his eyes are. Sometimes, just sometimes, Steve's got no qualms letting him off easy.

 

The attempt to preserve his sanity by not seeing Bucky at his worst, that lasts a lot longer than Steve predicted. Maybe he's getting callous in his old age, or maybe some of the 'you matter because you're you, you self-loathing dickbag' Sam drip-feeds him is sticking. Either way, Steve makes it over four months in their new home before he cracks. There haven't been any major incidents, they haven't attracted attention from the law or even too much from their concerned neighbours, and in retrospect Steve wonders if perhaps that level of calm is what finally gave him the space to break.

It's one not-so-special night spent staring at the ceiling, listening to Bucky's panic breathing through the wall as Steve tries desperately to get some fucking sleep, that puts him over the edge. The rhythm has become familiar –  slow, controlled breaths to try and slow down a rabbiting heart, stave off the uncontrolled freefall of pure panic. In: one, two, three. Hold: one, two, three. Out: one, two, three. Repeat ad nauseam, sometimes all fucking night as the sky turns purple, grey, blue, until it isn't night anymore.

Steve doesn't know how Bucky hasn't lost it already. Maybe he has.

This not-so-special night, Steve is the one who loses it.

It doesn't feel like him, the man who gets out of bed and stalks out of the room. He always has a vague sense of that, that his body is not his own and everything is somehow wrong in a way he can't describe, but this is more like dissociation than dysphoria. He watches from a distance as he slams Bucky's door open, lock ripping from the wood without an ounce of effort – as if safety was something afforded to them, God's redheaded stepchildren. Cuckoos in the nest of boys who never had the chance to become men.

He bears witness to the way he flings the closet door open to reveal his friend, hidden away as if his bulky frame still allows that, hears himself screaming _just have the fucking panic attack and get it over with_ as Bucky stares at him wide-eyed like this is the first time he's ever been afraid of Steve in his life.

Watches himself drop to his knees, grab Bucky's face in his hands that aren't his, squeeze hard enough to hurt and know he's hurting but unable to stop himself.

_Do you want me to end it? Do you want me to leave the knives where you can find them? Do you want out? Do you even want things? I don't know what to do, I don't know how to fix you, I don't know how to make things better I don't know if forcing you to live is worth it I don't know if I can do this I can't… I can't…_

"Steve." He feels the shaking hand on his wrist and comes back to himself, feels wetness on his cheeks and realises he's the one crying this time as Bucky watches him like his jawbones aren't creaking under the pressure of Steve's ugly strength. "Stevie, stop."

He stops. He lets Bucky go and doesn't resist as he's guided to sit on Bucky's right, to wedge his unnatural frame into the closet as Bucky's arm wraps around his shoulders and he can't stop crying. Bucky lets him tuck himself under his chin like he's still small, chest rising and falling in a limping pattern that never wavered even when he was afraid. He kept himself in check, even then, because only one of them can be in pieces at a time. Steve copies the pattern and limps along with him, even though the tears don't stop.

In: one, two, three. Hold: one, two, three. Out: one, two, three.

The sky turns purple, grey, blue, until it isn't night anymore.

 

The rain is colder now, later in the year, and the wind whips it into their skin like icy bullets as they walk along the ancient pier. Someone painted the railing over the summer, so it doesn't look rusty and is instead the same light green-blue as the nautical-themed plastic plates they bought for Bucky's bad days. It's an improvement, even if it's only cosmetic.

"We're better, right?" Bucky has his hood up, partially against the rain and partially to hide his bruised face. The fingerprints are still purple, nearly a day later, and Steve's stomach crunches with hopeless guilt every time he gets a look. "We're okay?"

The wind steals the questions as soon as they're born, flinging them away across the water as if brevity could lessen their sting. Steve wonders if they'll end up in Brooklyn, if that's even somewhere he wants to follow them. Perhaps Bucky isn't the only one who has trouble knowing his mind, these days.  

"I don't think I've ever been less okay." Steve admits, barely audible over the rain and wind and the lash of the sea. A damp, always-shaking hand slips into his and squeezes, just barely like it's afraid to be felt, and he manages something twisted resembling a smile.

"Is this f-forever?" Bucky asks, voice raw like he's opening a wound. Like he already knows the answer. "Is it always gonna b-be like this?"

Steve misses everything. Sam, the team, feeling like his life had some kind of meaning as an Avenger. He misses Peggy, the ache of loss like a bruise he's pressed on too many times and keeps going back to check if it still hurts. He misses Bucky in a primal way he can't shape into anything but the howl of a broken heart.

"I don't know." His voice cracks, but doesn't tremble. He feels resigned somehow, like the rocks in their pockets are more of a reassuring weight than a death sentence. "But I know I don't want to be without you."

"You w-won't be. We'll b-be together." Bucky promises, moving close and pressing his face into Steve's neck in a way he hasn't done for decades. Steve lets his eyes close and just feels for a minute, wrapping his arms around Bucky and feeling him stiffen to tolerate the embrace but not pushing away. A last kindness he doesn't deserve.

It's easy to lean against the railing and tip them over, the fall silent but for the rush of wind and one quick, panicked gasp – from who, only the sea knows – before the freezing water swallows them up.

 

This time, Steve pulls them from the water.

Gasping for air like he's never tasted it, he pulls them onto the beach and collapses onto the stones as Bucky spits up water and coughs himself sick until he can breathe again. The sea crashes without them, waves carelessly folding over each other in the face of their insignificance. They crumple there together, shivering and shaking and each only partially relieved they're not clinging together in the watery grave they'd promised each other. A baptism doesn't always mean rebirth.

"It'll get better." Steve croaks, once the flashback the water induced has passed. Maybe that's why he pulled them out, instinctive fight or flight, or maybe he's just never known when to quit. "It has to."

He doesn't see if Bucky nods, but he takes the hand offered to him when the sky starts to darken and they've both endured more than their fair share of cold. On jelly legs, they climb the steps carved out of stone and make their way back onto the pier. Bucky never lets go of Steve's hand, and he tells himself that's enough. Those trembling fingers, that bruised face with its almost-smile, those controlled breaths through the wall, they're _enough_. Maybe there is no better, maybe enough is all they have now.

As the smudgy sunset dares to peek through the passing storm clouds, Bucky and Steve limp home together, ready to try again.


End file.
